The mustard silk dress worn by Bhumika Shodhan hungrily laps up the afternoon sunshine. The resulting liquid gold shimmer swirls in rhythm to her graceful, long-limbed strides, as she makes her way around a huddle of mighty Corinthian columns. We are at Shanti Kunj, the 140-year-old mansion built by Sir Chinubhai Madhowlal Ranchodlal, great-great-grandfather of Bhumika’s husband Shyamal Shodhan, the other half of Ahmedabad’s hyphenated couple and the mind behind the fashion label Shyamal & Bhumika. Interestingly, the extravagant soirées that were once held on the quadrangular deck—clad in tiles shipped from Europe over a hundred years ago by Shyamal’s forebears—was the inspiration behind the couple’s show, The Princess’s Soirée, at India Couture Week 2017 in July.

GOLDEN YEARSShyamal grew up to stories of the lavish parties with over 2,000 guests, mostly foreign dignitaries and royalty, in attendance, hosted by his ancestors at this deck. The former grounds have now been reduced to a relatively small patch. In its place, swarming on all sides, is a dispiriting rash of skyscrapers that have sprung up in the wake of Ahmedabad’s febrile property boom. “The house no longer belongs to the family but is preserved by the developers who own it now,” says Shyamal.

Shyamal, however, feels just as deeply connected to the mansion, having grown up listening to stories of its glory days. From his grandmother’s accounts of Pandit Ravi Shankar spending months teaching her classical music to the many splendid parties hosted by his baronet great-great-grandfather. Or to legends about artists of the Baroda royals who painted their family portraits and of the trains that stopped at the station nearby but didn’t issue their mandatory whistle in deference to the sleep patterns of the newborns in the family. “I have encouraged the developer to see the merits of converting this into a fashion or textile museum,” says Shyamal, whose ancestors were also the founders of Ahmedabad’s first textile mill.

His grandmother’s family haveli, the 17th-century Divanji ni Haveli, now owned by a prominent developer and located in the old congested quarters of Sankhdi Sheri, is already one of the landmark heritage sites of Ahmedabad.

SHARED HISTORYThe couple doesn’t just share a deep passion for the city’s heritage and tradition, their love story is also pinned in place by an unwavering loyalty to their roots and a solid respect for each other’s creative spirit. “We’ve known each other since high school. By the time we were 17, we knew it was more than friendship. We had fallen in love,” recalls Shyamal. “I’d ride my Kinetic Honda to pick her up for our date every weekend, and every time she’d step out in an avant garde outfit that she’d designed and tailored! Her friends would laugh at some of the abstract stuff she wore, but I would be floored by her creative zeal.”

While Bhumika trained at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Shyamal earned his degree in Commerce from HL College of Commerce, Ahmedabad. It was when he was assisting his parents’ product design firm in Hyderabad that he came to know about the weavers in the surrounding villages. “Bhumika was then an intern in Bangalore, and we’d visit these weavers, suggest different designs and motifs and craft our own textiles.”

When their fi rst exhibition, hosted at Shyamal’s house in Ahmedabad, became a sell-out, he knew what he had to do. In 2000, the duo launched Shyamal & Bhumika, and, a few years later, Shyamal went to train at Central St Martins in London, and then studied design in Milan. Four years on, they married, and another four years later they were parents to two sons, Vivaan and Yohaan.

“Initially, I wanted to be where the action is, in Mumbai or Delhi, but Bhumika pointed out that we’d always be competing against a thousand designers in an extremely high-pressure environment,” says Shyamal. “She said, let’s make our mark in Ahmedabad and focus on creativity instead of being bogged down by commerce.”

Today, they have an army of 1,000 craftsmen at their workshop, even as they work with weavers to revive some dying Amdavadi weaving techniques. “It takes us a month and half to complete one sari, and then many rounds of inspection for another four months before we hand it to our clients,” says Shyamal. But such laboured scrutiny hasn’t slowed down their business—instead, their label, a coveted bridal wear brand among South Asians abroad, handled 4,00,000 inquiries last year from around the world. “While it’s wonderful to have 3.5 million followers on social media, it gets immensely tiring too,” he adds. Besides a throng of international queries, the couple has a packed travel itinerary with business trips almost every week to their Mumbai store, and a new, more flamboyant one scheduled to open shortly in Delhi.

INNER CIRCLEIt’s intriguing then that the home they are currently building, adjacent to Shyamal’s family home, is shorn of all the opulence that marks their creations.

“We wanted our space to be bleached of all ornamentation and colour,” says Bhumika, who has spent the last three months supervising carpenters and masons. “It is minimalistic and Zen-like with Indian stone flooring, vast stretches of cemented walls and wood reclaimed from old mills.

There’s also an art room for the kids.” Although it is fashion that sets them free, it is cooking that helps Bhumika tap into her inner gypsy. “I love experimenting with the complex recipes on weekends. I can never get enough of Mediterranean and Far Eastern cuisine, and I can shop endlessly, even a little over-extravagantly, for groceries and produce.” On a recent trip to San Francisco, Bhumika filled their car trunk with a mind-boggling inventory of pasta, exotic varieties of cheese, herbs and greens to bring back. “She can go berserk when she sees crockery. I need to caution her,” he says. “Our trips abroad are mostly for work, so we try and extend them to a vacation,” says Shyamal. “During our off time, you’ll find us at museums. We’ve checked out all the museums in every city we’ve visited.”

Do they find time to sit and pause or are their lives consumed by their business partnership?

“That’s the beautiful part,” says Bhumika, “We can sit in a jeep in the midst of Maasai Mara and enjoy the beauty around as we discuss a new weaving technique. This is how we have grown together.” It’s easy to see how they reach out for each other even now—the Kinetic Honda that Shyamal rode two decades ago while courting Bhumika in her teens still sits outside their workshop, and he makes sure it is polished to a gleaming finish every single day.